Thursday, March 19, 2009

Auction Rooms, North Melbourne

Back in the good old days, bargain hunters went to auction rooms. Today, they go to eBay. Which leaves more room for people to open cafes, like Auction Rooms, 103-107 Errol Street, North Melbourne, Tel +61 3 9326 7749. In, you guessed it, some former auction rooms. Not only do they serve great coffee, they even roast their own beans.

They also serve interesting food, like hazelnut-crumbed lambs brains on saute bacon and spinach with sweet onion jam. Brains for breakfast. Not exactly my cup of tea. I prefer to avoid foods that give me mad cow disease and gout. But I'm sure some of you are far more daring than me. Knock yourselves out.

7 Comments:

Richard Dajenais said...

As a longtime resident of Melbourne, I am very impressed with the menu at Auction Rooms. They do a different kind of breakfast with enough common touchstones that I think anyone would find something to like. I am a fan of lambs' brains and black pudding for breakfast, but I'll have eggs on toast or an omelette as well. Their lemon thyme pancake is amongst the best I've ever had, and I'm from Quebec (and I'm a chef) so I hope that makes me qualified to judge. The presentation and execution from the kitchen is exceptional, and the floor service is strong and friendly (but for one occasion when our server seemed unable to smile, make eye contact, or speak much, but we all have less than stellar days days on the job). The coffee is very good too. The room is very well laid-out, not very noisy and there is plenty of room to spread the newspapers. It's bright, open and above all comfortable. I cross town to go there. All up, 15 on 20 for me, pretty much the top score.

This is my first time commenting on your blog and I want to say thank you for sharing with us so many delightful spots for breakfast/brunch.

I was surprised that Auction rooms hardly has a review on your blog. I frequent this place as their coffee is good, it has a nice chilled atmosphere and the menu is interesting and tasty. They have innovative names for their dishes too, such as 'opening bid' which matches their name as a previous auction room. Parking is easy to find.

I did not have lamb brains there and personally I am not a fan of lamb brains either (too squishy), but there is so much more on the menu that is superb! It is a great place to hang out with frieds and I would rate this one of my top 20 breakfast spots in Melb. Perhaps it would be worth giving it another try and a rating? :)

i've also heard good things about Auction Rooms and was considering it as a possibility for a girls breakfast catch-up i have planned. the only issue is one of our number is a vegan. does anyone know if the Auction Rooms cater to vegans and vegetarians?

I loved this place! Have been meaning to go there for quite a while, and finally did today for lunch. I had the polenta with spinach, mushrooms, pesto and rocket! delish!! highly recommend! everything else looked good too! and the coffee was strong and hot like i asked for! :) happy sisters here. it was a lovely day too, and the windows were lovely opening out onto the street!

This place just seemed to try far too hard to be hipster cool. I had the middle eastern style dish (can't remember the name of it) but was very disappointed when the addition of chorizo stuck out like a sore thumb. Normally I'm a massive fan of chorizo but when it clearly doesn't work in a dish it leaves the impression that the chef had a great idea but didn't bother to check the outcome.

The staff was also unfriendly and service left quite a lot to be desired. I understand that on a Sunday morning things can be quite busy but for a place like this that would have to be used to a Sunday morning rush it was a big let down.